Shades Of Forever

I give myself another few minutes of laying out and simply enjoying being alive, then rise to my feet. I need to find MacWillie and Huckens and let them know it's safe to start salvaging the starfly.

DING

"...ugh, fine. Let's get this over with."

Establishing new reality baseline... waiting for quantum observer collapse...

You have three infinity expressions available

Infinity Expressions

Increased Damage (0/5)

Increased Attack Speed (5/5) (+30%) (Three IOs available)

*Increased Movement Speed {Short Range} (0/3)

*Increased Non-Causal Effect Chance (0/8)

Avoidance (1/5) (-1%)

Life Regeneration (0/5)

Increased Movement Speed (2/5) (+10%)

Increased Pierce Chance (0/5)

Attack Speed - Irrational Options

Specialization (0/∞) (Increases Attack Speed by 1%. Subsequent investments will be 10% less. 1, .9, .81, .729, .6561, .59049, .531441...)

Momentum Strikes (1/1) (2% Increased Damage for each hit on an enemy in the last three seconds, to a maximum of double the base Increased Damage value)

Quickened Metabolism (0/1) (Increases to Attack Speed also apply to Life Regen rate, does not change efficiency of biomass use)

Phase Shift (1/1) (Non-causal damage from a single source is lessened by 50% of total Attack Speed value, to a maximum of 50% total damage mitigated. Attack Speed has no effect for three seconds after mitigating damage this way)

"You know I hate this, right?"

Put one expression into Increased Move Speed.

My strides through the wreckage speed up as I do what Box says, each step becoming more fluid and efficient. My walking pace is now close to Dirt's light jog.

"What do I do with the other two?"

You have two infinity expressions available

Infinity Expressions

Increased Damage (0/5)

Increased Attack Speed (5/5) (+30%) (Three IOs available)

*Increased Movement Speed {Short Range} (0/3)

*Increased Non-Causal Effect Chance (0/8)

Avoidance (1/5) (-1%)

Life Regeneration (0/5)

Increased Movement Speed (3/5) (+20%)

*Increased Attack Speed {Short Range} (0/4)

*Increased Dash Recovery Rate (0/7)

Increased Pierce Chance (0/5)

Attack Speed - Irrational Options

Specialization (0/∞) (Increases Attack Speed by 1%. Subsequent investments will be 10% less. 1, .9, .81, .729, .6561, .59049, .531441...)

Momentum Strikes (1/1) (2% Increased Damage for each hit on an enemy in the last three seconds, to a maximum of double the base Increased Damage value)

Quickened Metabolism (0/1) (Increases to Attack Speed also apply to Life Regen rate, does not change efficiency of biomass use)

Phase Shift (1/1) (Non-causal damage from a single source is lessened by 50% of total Attack Speed value, to a maximum of 50% total damage mitigated. Attack Speed has no effect for three seconds after mitigating damage this way)

"...you're doing this on purpose, aren't you."

Not at all. Put the other two expressions in Dash Recovery Rate.

Nothing immediate happens, and I shrug.

"Well, that didn't do much."

We're building to something, Sky. Have patience.

"That's rich, coming from you," I mutter under my breath.

What was that? I couldn't hear you over my excitement at being able to display this other box.

Impossibility Matrix Expansion Available

- Non-causal storage (1/5)

- Transmutation (0/5)

- Reality effectuator (2/4)

"I don't mind that box. It's much more dignified. Should I pick another limb?"

Correct. We won't need Transmutation until we get a molecular forge up and going.

I make the choice, and a third appendage of fuzzed bone-white wavers into place next to me.

We can attune the pistol to it. I took the liberty of packing for you when nobody was paying attention. It's in the non-causal storage.

"Well wasn't that thoughtful of you, Box. Let's take a look and-"

My voice trails off as I access the non-causal storage space, a window of knowledge expanding in my mind.

"...Box, why is there a pistol and forty-nine kilograms of day old fish in the storage? Where did you even get that much fish?"

Emergency biomass. They were in the river and were not trees. Ergo, fair game.

My eyes suddenly widen, imagining a pile of day old fish lacking any form of preservative.

"That storage dimension, it keeps them fresh, right?"

The optimal temperature for ideal biomass consumption is 37.2 degrees Celsius.

"And that's a... low temperature, right? Pretty cold?"

Compared to the surface of a star, yes. Practically freezing. I will now restock our reserves.

"Wait-"

A dripping pile of bubbling meat appears in front of me, just as quickly devoured by my limbs, but it's in our reality for long enough. The stench hits me like a brick wall, and hot saliva fills my mouth.

"Box... urp... can you... mmmph... consume them... hork... directly from storage... hnghhh..."

Of course, Sky.

A thick slurping sound - the audible equivalent of that stench - fills my head, and I stagger out from the wreckage of the starfly, one hand clasped to my rebelling stomach, the other over my mouth. Distant shouting comes from the hilltop, and then MacWillie and Huckens are racing towards me.

"Sky! Are you okay?!"

I vomit, barely missing Huckens' boots and he dances away from the noxious puddle. One of my limbs swoops down to clean it up, which causes me to vomit again, a thin stream of bile. A second limb intersperses itself between my mouth and the ground, sucking up the yellowish stomach fluids as they fall, and I try to puke once more, stomach muscles cramping, but this time nothing comes out.

I want to fall over and die. MacWillie grabs my shoulders, stabilizing me, concern writ across her face.

"Is it some sort of poison? Non-causal status effects aren't a thing to muck around with - do we need to take you back to your healer?"

"...fish," I croak, my throat stinging. I wipe a hand across my streaming eyes and spit, trying to rid my mouth of the taste. "It was fish."

MacWillie and Huckens slowly turn and stare at each other, wearing equal expressions of bewilderment.

"...fish?"

Box slurps out another kilogram from my inventory and I gag, MacWillie's hands the only things keeping me from collapsing to the dirt.

"Box... stored forty nine... kilograms... of day old fish... in my storage space... and then he... brought one out... to eat..."

They both return their attention to me, then MacWillie bursts into laughter.

"Aye, and if you're alive to complain about a wee little fishie, that must mean you've cleared out the anchors. Surely those were the worse of the two, right?"

Huckens hesitantly joins in her laughter, and I brace my hands on my knees, determined to keep myself from collapsing.

"Box... why don't... you give them... a sniff..."

Another melting abomination appears in front of my face, my limbs making short work of it, but it's enough for the stench to return. MacWillie lets go of my shoulders, her face turning green, and she stumbles several steps away before letting loose a torrent of her own. Huckens collapses in a boneless faint.

"...told... you..." I gasp out in between dry heaves. "...it was... the fish..."

Ten minutes later, after MacWillie and I have collected ourselves and slapped Huckens back into sensibility, and I've instructed Box on the proper methods of food preservation, we've decided on a plan to explore the theoretically safe remains of the starfly. It mainly involves me escorting MacWillie and Huckens to the appropriate salvage sites in case another reality breach happens, and then waiting around while they do incomprehensible engineer nonsense.

Fortunately, this time the plan goes off without a hitch, and we return to the village three hours later with everything we need for the infonet receiver, the majority of it tucked away in my now thankfully empty-of-rotting-fish storage space; Huckens' toolbag carrying the rest. Box attuned the pistol somewhere along the way, but I haven't forgiven it yet for exposing me to that sanity-breaking horror.

It was perfectly viable biomass. I was trying to make you feel better!

"The smell of rotting fish doesn't make anyone feel better, Box!"

disagreement

"Oh, shut up, Pete! You've been sleeping this whole time, you lazy bag of-"

naptime

I'm left spluttering as we draw to a halt next to Wires' sapling, the heartseed I planted yesterday still festooned with MacWillie's measuring equipment. She checks it all one last time, then motions for me and Huckens to unload the various pieces they disassembled from the starfly. I start piling the inscrutable shapes in neat rows under the bright noon glare, trying not to imagine I can still taste the smell of putrefying fish on my tongue.

"Are you going to use his tree?" I ask her once all the components for the receiver have been laid out. Some of them look like they're not quite occupying the space they should be. MacWillie glances over at me.

"Where you buried your friend?" She shakes her head. "No, young Sky, for something like this we need a proper engine, and now that I know the knowing of getting inside, he'll rest in peace a while yet."

She beckons Huckens to join her, then begins assembling a framework around one of the elder trees bordering the clearing. The pieces latch onto the tree in strange meldings, as if they've always grown out of the trunk that way. MacWillie narrates her actions in a low voice to Huckens, who watches with a studious attentiveness and joins in when instructed.

"Aren't you worried this will make you reach level one hundred, Chief MacWillie?"

I can't help myself. I'm nervous watching her work, watching her sacrifice herself for our village.

Her initial response is a braying laugh.

"This, young Sky? I've broken down and reassembled infonet receivers across a thousand star systems. I'm in no danger of leveling from putting together one more, even if the power source is a tad unconventional."

"I don't really get how the 'levels' work," I admit honestly. Her and Huckens and Box constantly speak of levels, something I think I've come to understand via context, in that our integrators gain more power when the reality buffer reaches full and we clear it, but the idea comes to them with an ease I don't yet feel.

"The easiest way to gain levels is when we do something new," MacWillie starts, then smacks Huckens' hand away from where he's about to insert a piece. "Not that way, you daft git! Resonance harmonizers always go in counter-counter-clockwise!"

"Sorry, Chief."

"Anyways, as I was saying," she grabs another receiver piece from the forest floor, "expanding your mind expands your integrator's infinities, which gives you more options in how it can access reality. Would I be wrong in thinking you've been gaining multiple levels at a time from your encounters?"

I nod in assent, and she nods back.

"Aye, and you'll likely keep gaining those levels at an accelerated rate because everything in the galaxy is going to be new to you. That's why we don't let children integrate until at least eight years of age and some basic schooling, otherwise they'd reach the madness point before they'd ever had a chance to live."

"And that's inefficient for the corpos," Huckens adds sourly.

"Aye, lad, that it is. They prefer us to go out in our twenties so they can take advantage of the integrator as long as possible."

"Then how'd you get to be so old?" I ask. MacWillie pretends to be affronted.

"You wound my heart, young Sky, calling a winsome lass such as myself 'old.'" She adjusts a pair of dials and laughs. "It's true, though. I'm well past the age most people vacate their mind, and it's because I grew up in the church of the never-god. Studied reality at my own mother's breast, learned the ins and outs of engine maintenance from both my fathers' hands, so when it came time to integrate, I already knew more than most level fifties. Made leveling slower at the start, but I've outlasted all of my crewmates in the engine rooms. There's not much I haven't seen, which means I gained most of my levels through repetition and perfecting the abilities I have, and that takes much longer."

I fall silent for a minute, thinking.

"But if that's the case, why don't the corpos make sure children are educated? That they know as much as possible? Wouldn't that make them stronger and allow people to live longer?"

"They do," Huckens interrupts, voice still bitter, "but it's only for the rich." He stomps over for another receiver piece, a curved piece of metal that shrinks and grows depending on how he holds it. "Those corpo bastards don't even sniff an integrator until they've passed those fancy schools they have."

"Aye," MacWillie's mirth fades, "the lad's not wrong about that either. The children of corpo leaders live a very different youth than the rest of us. Makes them a right terror when they finally do get integrated. A level twenty upper board member is easily as powerful as a level ninety spacedog raised up normal, and they've got a whole mess of underlings that've gone through the same schools."

"...that's not fair." Strident conviction fills my voice. "If everyone is going to help the village to the best of their abilities, they have to know what those abilities are!"

"The universe isn't fair, young Sky," MacWillie shrugs, "but that's the way it is, and no one's come along to say otherwise. What the corpos have works well enough at keeping us alive, and that's all most folk care about. Watching a corpo VP grow old and wrinkled while your brothers and sisters turn into cogs for the machine is just the price you pay to stay safe from reality."

My fingers dig into my palms, an unexpected anger striking me. What MacWillie and Huckens are describing runs counter to everything I've been taught, everything that's kept the village stable over the years. If we lived our lives like that, everything would fall apart. Their system is unhealthy. It's flawed.

...rewriting core assumptions...

...you're right, Sky. It's not sustainable. Unfortunately, it's sustainable enough that it won't break in our lifetime, or multiple lifetimes after that. There's nothing we can do.

I clench my hands one more time, then let my anger fade. Box is right. Worrying about something I can't change is an unhealthy mental habit. I don't have to like what the corpos are doing, and I'll change it if I get the chance, but it's all the more reason to focus on what I can affect, which is making sure the village is safe. I think back on MacWillie's initial response.

"So, setting up this 'infonet receiver' won't level you, but what about the 'incognito field?' Isn't using that to hide the village something new, like tapping into the trees?"

"Aye," MacWillie chuckles grimly, "that'll probably be what gets me, but don't waste your breath on that, young Sky. When it's time, it'll be time, and that's for me to worry about." With Huckens' help she attaches one last piece to the elder tree's trunk, flips some switches, then they both step back, examining the forest giant critically.

The pale bark is covered in flowing grey metal that dips in and out of the trunk like vines, a living extension of the tree itself, and patterns of golden light pulse regularly across the surfaces like tiny wildflowers. One by one the lights flicker over to a steady green, and then the whole system flashes once and settles into an indistinct haze, visible only when I'm directly looking at it and even then it tries to squirm away from my attention.

"Good work on the dimensional twist, young master Huckens," MacWillie says approvingly, and Huckens blushes. She turns slightly to include me. "We installed the receiver out of phase with this reality so your people won't be able to see it. Keep their minds from melting out on a forest stroll."

"I appreciate that," I reply drily. "What about the 'infonet?'"

"Still coming online," MacWillie responds. "Has to calibrate itself to the local galactic signal field. We won't be able to send, but we'll be able to listen in on anything within twenty thousand light years."

"What's a light ye-"

My voice cuts off as a new sense flowers open in my mind. Dazed, I stare off into nothingness, all my attention on the massive jungle of information expanding in all directions, overwhelming in its unfathomable intensity. It's like I'm in a room filled with a million different conversations, and all I have to do is think about one to focus in on it. Words, images, pictures that move, words that move, an endless jumble of language and ideas that beckon me to understand them until it feels like the top of my head is going to unscrew itself from all the stimuli, an accumulation of knowledge that our Memory Shrine would sink into without a trace.

Ahhh-

"-it's good to be back," Box, MacWillie, and Huckens chorus.

I sink to the forest floor, overwhelmed. Where do I even start?